Back in early June, before the hot weather got cranked up, Mid-Island Councilman James Oddo warned that Summer 2013 could very well be a banner year for mosquitoes on Staten Island. And because the insects can carry West Nile Virus, a significantly larger mosquito population means a significantly greater threat to public health.

Mr. Oddo was on to something. He reasoned that Hurricane Sandy left many places where water can collect — especially in and around abandoned properties. Mosquitoes breed in even a small amount of standing water.

His concern was validated by researchers from Tulane University, who found more than 5,000 new pools of standing water in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.

And now, with all the rain we've had in the first part of the summer, his warning is proving true. Mosquitoes are swarming all over the borough, particularly along the shoreline.

Sure enough, West Nile Virus was recently found in a mosquito captured along the Huguenot shoreline. And you can bet where there is one infected mosquito, there are many others.

But the city Department of Health, which ought to be on top of this threat, has not shown much interest thus far. Mr. Oddo pointedly noted that the agency has been more concerned lately with such issues a supersized sodas. In fact, it took him weeks to get a meeting with agency officials on the subject.

He said city health officials "don't appreciate how these folks [on Staten Island's shoreline] have gone through nine months of hell, and issues like this really matter to them. They want to feel that the Department of Health has an iota of interest in them."

He pointed out that this apparent indifference about West Nile comes on the heels of all the controversy about the Health Department's unwillingness to do what's necessary to remove mold from abandoned homes.

South Shore Councilman Vincent Ignizio had an even harsher assessment: "I think this is a byproduct of the Department of Health being preoccupied with social engineering projects, and not being focused on acute public health issues that we've had for years, and are going to continue [to have] for years, especially after the amount of rain we've had recently and after Sandy."

But the Health Department takes a decidedly "What, us worry?" position on the problem.

"The onset of West Nile Virus season in New York City is similar to previous years," the agency said in a statement, adding that it is monitoring the situation regularly.

The lawmakers charge, however, that the department has failed to provide adequate information to residents or their elected officials. Moreover, the department has inexplicably limited its response to treating large wetland areas as well as storm-sewer catch basins with insect larvicide, which does not kill adult mosquitoes.

"It makes sense to me to go where the mosquitoes are, and the mosquitoes are on the East Shore with the same level of ferocity as they are in the West Shore marshland," Mr. Oddo said. "And in the East Shore, there's something else — they're called residents, who are impacted by it."

It's only a matter of time until more people are infected.

But the department insists that a more aggressive response is not yet necessary.

"A decision to spray for adult mosquitoes is based on field surveillance and West Nile virus testing results," the statement said.

We hate to beat the same drum, but this seems to be another example of the vastly different perspectives of top city officials and Staten Islanders. The officials who are making the decisions at the Department of Health live in urban neighborhoods in Manhattan and Brooklyn. They don't live in South Beach or Oakwood Beach, where clouds of mosquitoes fill the air as soon as the sun begins to go down.

As the lawmakers point out, the agency seems to be only too eager to declare war on foods that tend to lead to obesity over the long term, and there's nothing wrong with that. But we should think, in light of past serious outbreaks of a virus that has killed people, the Department of Health would want to get ahead of this more immediate threat and do much more to control this summer's plague of mosquitoes.